The Brave New World of the Sex Pirate

“[L]et me just tell you this Mitt ‘Muddle Mouth’: I’m a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear," Charles Blow of the New York Timesinfamously tweeted in February of 2012, then deleted the tweet and issued a half-hearted apology when called on his bigotry. Ace mocked him mercilessly on Twitter afterwards as "Charles Blow, Sex Pirate"; Hugh Hewitt had the rest of backstory last year at the Washington Examiner:

Has the New York Times created a hostile work environment toward Mormons and perhaps members of other religious faiths such that they could sue the newspaper to stop its encouragement of or at least indifference to the bigotry of its employees and perhaps management?

The facts are simple. Times columnist Charles Blow is not very well known and far from influential, but he does have a column and is esteemed enough by the paper’s management to be given frequent and prominent placement within the paper’s website.

During last week’s GOP debate, Blow tweeted, “let me just tell you this Mitt ‘Muddle Mouth’: I’m a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear.”

National Review’s Jim Geraghty was the first conservative to notice Blow’s casual disparagement of Latter-day Saints’ religious practice. “Would the New York Times find it acceptable if one of their columnists chose to mock Muslim religious practices?” Geraghty asked. “Jewish faith practices?”

Blow disappeared into the wordwork a bit after that; just another offensive Timesman earning a first-class income by insulting half the newspaper's potential readers. (He has feigned a lack of knowledge of best-selling author Michelle Malkin, and referred to the Tea Party as "teaklanners," a curious slur considering the Klan's deep ties to pioneering big government "Progressive" and racist, Woodrow Wilson.)

Which may explain why, as Bethany Mandel writes at Commentary, in a post titled, "Charles Blow’s Brave New World," Blow's recent column, displaying further utilitarian ethics, "received little attention and even less denouncement:"

Blow expresses concern for the future of the entitlement system, given the likelihood that the current structure is due to collapse under the top-heavy weight of an aging population. This is a serious worry for many financial planners on the city, state, and federal level and has been discussed by commentators and politicians on both the left and right. When pension contracts are written and entitlement benefits drafted, one never knows how long recipients will live. Would the more logical solution be to deny life-extending medical treatment to individuals? Or would it perhaps make more sense to re-adjust our entitlements system to compensate for a lengthening lifespan? To Blow, it seems that the more appealing solution would be to end scientific investigation and research, content that we have traveled far enough in our quest for a longer and more fulfilling life. The cessation of the advancement of science and discovery is somehow more appealing to Blow than reevaluating the generous life-long financial commitments made to millions with public money.

The Orwellian ramifications of Blow’s worries over an aging population are vast. If individuals are only worthy of membership in society if they are able bodied, where does the line get drawn? If life-extending treatments become verboten, lest society be burdened with what Blow seems to believe are useless individuals, would the physically and mentally infirm also be denied life-saving treatments? While eugenics is often seen as part of the past, one cannot forget the legacy that those who championed its use carry in our modern world. The mother of what is now Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was outspoken in her support of eugenicist policies. In her 1920 book Sanger argued that “birth control is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives.” Those questioning how effective Sanger’s campaign to weed out the unfit has been can look at the latest data on abortion rates for fetuses who test positive for Down Syndrome (studies place the number at over 90 percent).

The fact that Blow’s column has received little attention and even less denouncement should concern anyone interested in keeping our society morally intact. While Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is seen as a work of fiction, we may one day, if Charles Blow’s vision of society is realized, see it as prophetic instead.